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India’s recent test of its K-4 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) marks a key moment in the regional strategic calculus. Said to have a range of 3500 km, the missile allows India’s submarines to stay in ‘safe’ zones but still be able to hit targets in Pakistan and China.
“The sea-based nuclear component of India’s architecture of nuclear deterrence is well on its way to an operational status. And part of that was the testing of the K4 missile,” says RAdm Sudarshan Shrikhande (Retd), who has headed the Naval Intelligence.
India’s decision to acquire a sea-based nuclear deterrent is quite old. And the driver for acquiring nuclear weapon capability was China’s nuclear test in 1964, which has been the big reason why India needs to develop its own triad, RAdm Shrikhande told Bharat Shakti Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.
The former Navy officer feels with two SSBNs and a third/fourth one getting ready India is now better positioned to have Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD). And that will effectively mean at least one SSBN at sea, thereby making a first strike by the enemy tough.
No wonder Pakistan is worried. The narrative emanating from there suggests India’s K-4 test puts South Asia’s nuclear balance in jeopardy. “The whole commentary is designed to actually justify their military expenditure, justify their build-up. Pakistan’s nuclear sabre rattling is related to a deep sense of insecurity that it has vis-a-vis India,” says RAdm Shrikhande (Retd).
In contrast, China’s reaction has been largely muted. The driver for China’s nuclear weapons was as much the former Soviet Union and perhaps Russia today, as it is the United States of America, he says. And India doesn’t really fit into that scheme of things. But China tends to deploy research ships to keep a tab on India’s actions.
Tune in to this discussion where RAdm Sudarshan Shrikhande (Retd) also talks about why Pakistan’s recent constitutional amendment that makes Army Chief Asim Munir all powerful does lower the nuclear threshold.
